1980s NEWS
INTERVIEW CONTINUED
Robert Lipsyte:
dangerous or counterproductive to our lives?
Cynthia Ozick 17:39
Oh, absolutely counterproductive. Where where his conduct? Where we're are what? Mr. Campbell despises the rules. How do we know the difference between good and evil? He said in another part of those broadcasts that there was no good and evil one, everything that is, is all right, because it is. Now first of all, you would never have technology. If you believe that nobody could ever invent the wheel, you would never have amelioration of suffering. And in any case, he he and noble suffering, I don't believe he's a revolutionary at all. I think the revolution comes in the in the first moment that the human being says, I have a desire to do something, but I will not do it. Restraint and restraint of one's own conduct is the revolution. That's the revolution of conscience. Do
Robert Lipsyte 18:33
you think he's dangerous? Do you think he's dangerous to all those 30 million people out there who watched that series?
Cynthia Ozick 18:38
He's probably not too dangerous insofar as the poetry is lovely. If they're going to take him seriously, then of course, he's dangerous. He's going to make everybody feel that he or she is capable of other unrestraint
Robert Lipsyte 18:52
Cynthia, sitting next to you somebody who would want people to take Joseph Campbell seriously, wouldn't you? Yes. Oh, how do you feel about what you just said?
Madeline Nold 19:00
Well, I agree to disagree. And I don't feel that he's dangerous in the sense that he might change millions you know, you mentioned Hitler or something before like like that. He's a he was a kind soft spoken, intelligent man. What is dangerous if you think about danger, are perhaps the real fascists who are out there the real skinheads, you know, the groups that are really alive. He's not alive anymore
Cynthia Ozick 19:24
his philosophy creates
Robert Lipsyte 19:26
they don't watch PBS.
Cynthia Ozick 19:28
You don't think that that the philosophy of I am God are inseparable. God is in me, the power of the universe, the force of allnness is in me, you don't think that's a dangerous thing.
Madeline Nold 19:40
I ask you something. If you don't trust yourself, and I'm taking a little bit of a theoretical leap here, okay. If you don't trust yourself deeply inside and you're a little scared of trusting yourself, then you might project out that it's dangerous to trust yourself and have an experience that would be beyond the mental safety of thinking and ideological
Robert Lipsyte 20:00
I hear you saying that religion is for insecure people? And that Joseph Campbell gives you this the strength and energy to move out
Madeline Nold 20:06
no, I'm not saying that's what I want to do. To clarify, this is what I feel that religion as such, gives you dogma and ideas, and you can line up rituals in a way of life so that you can feel secure. I don't think it's bad. I'm not a Marxist on that, you know, I don't think that it's the opiate of the people. But on the other hand, to trust your own your own inner life, your own experience, can sometimes take a lot of courage.
Daniel Noel 20:33
In the area of psychology, where Joe Campbell was moving the Western tradition and the myth, mythical tradition of the West End of the World, precisely in this individualistic direction, then one has to start to talk about what did he mean? And what did his mentors Freud and Jung mean by the self? Because it follow your bliss means to trust yourself? The question is, is this the ego is this the deep self, we start to get into those distinctions. And if one goes deeply, quote, unquote, deeply enough, one reaches something that may be transpersonal, or transcendent of the ego and of the self in a narrow sense. And then you start to get something that is not selfish in our, you know, small s sense of selfish.
Robert Lipsyte 21:18
So I think you are saying that we get to that with Campbell. that ultimately he gives rather than takes away
Robert Segal 21:21
May I reinforce I think what Dan is saying, where I think Gil and perhaps Cynthia have misunderstood once again, I don't present myself a defender of Campbell misunderstood the clout of follow your bliss, is in failing to connect it to Campbell's staunch, relentless, never abandoned mysticism to follow your bliss is not for him. And again, I'm not defending it is not for him, to do whatever you like, oblivious to others. It's not to find God in yourself, and not to find it and others on the contrary, it's in Campbell's reading of mysticism in which all things are want all paths are one as well. Wherever you go by Campbell's logic, wherever your bliss leads you, it will lead you it will lead you down the same path as as following the bliss of others will lead them it will lead you to the same oneness you find I find God only
Robert Lipsyte 22:07
I gotta tell you, somebody who really enjoyed the series as watching storyteller, I find this kind of woolly. I mean, this oneness and this path and everything like that.
Daniel Noel 22:17
Might be woolly, wool. Wool should be woolly. We use these terms, spongy, fuzzy and woolly. Well, you have to realize there are many logics,
Cynthia Ozick 22:26
which is a more philosophical term, how about the term fusion, as opposed to making distinctions?
Robert Lipsyte 22:32
Well, like what it's all about,
Daniel Noel 22:34
fusion people, I like, fusion better than nuclear,
Robert Lipsyte 22:37
people are trying to find their way. And for some people, of course, this series was nothing less than an exploration of the meaning of life. It Campbell put an interesting spin on that, too.